Marriage equality, relocate KCI, prayer

There certainly will be efforts to establish marriage equality in Missouri and Kansas (6-27, A1, “Closer to equal”).

My husband and I married in New York last year. Because of the Windsor case, we now enjoy the more than 1,000 federal benefits and obligations based on marriage.

But the hateful anti-marriage amendments in Missouri and Kansas leave us only half-married. We are still denied important rights, such as inheritance and health-care decision-making, that are based in state law.

The latest Supreme Court decisions lay the groundwork for the courts to overturn these discriminatory state amendments.

As marriage equality spreads, having equality here becomes more than an issue of justice. It will be an economic issue if the amendments aren’t repealed or overturned. Many married LGBT people here will get fed up with second-class status and move to states such as Iowa or Minnesota where they will enjoy complete equality.

If Illinois becomes the next state to adopt marriage equality, LGBTs in St. Louis could just move across the river to be fully equal. That would cost Missouri and Kansas brains and tax revenues.

It’s 2013 and time to ensure full marriage equality for all our citizens.

Rob Montague

Overland ParkRelocate KCI

The big money wants to replace Kansas City International Airport. More profit, we assume, and it will be better for the environment, they say. Local travelers aren’t so sure, citing the current ease of use for the actual customer.

But, if it’s going to be a new one, why not put it where the travelers are? You know, in Johnson County or maybe near Legends.

Amazing that our Kansas movers and shakers haven’t jumped on this opportunity.

Ron Platt

Overland ParkPrayer, U.S. right

America is truly a great nation because it allows its president to pray in the public arena without protests about separation of church and state.

I wish all people were afforded the same right.

Gene Zwolinski

LeawoodKC’s begging needs

Why do we need a streetcar when you can watch bus after bus drive around the city at times with nobody but the driver? I work downtown and watch them drive by all day long.

So why do we need a streetcar? What we need to spend money on is the infrastructure problems that plague this city.

There are places in this city where people are still on septic systems, and what happens to the money escrowed for this project? Some councilwoman like Cindy Circo nabs it for soccer fields.

When my neighborhood looks like the Plaza or when our water bills stop going up 18 percent, then maybe Circo can have her soccer fields and downtown can have its streetcar.

Let’s all band together and vote in the next election for people who have a clue what we really need in this city, such as sewers and stormwater drains.

At least that’s what my neighborhood needs.

Ben Julius

Kansas CityMissouri fuel tax

Anyone who has driven Missouri roads can attest to their need of attention. Shortage of money by the Missouri Department of Transportation is the commonly stated reason that repairs, upgrades and improvements are lacking.

The need for funds is not in question. The best method of raising the money is where the debate lies.

As a funding source, many people think a 1 percent sales-tax increase is a better deal than a 17-cent fuel-tax increase. Reportedly, both would generate about the same amount of money.

The average person drives about 12,000 miles per year. If the average gas mileage is 20 miles per gallon, then 600 gallons of fuel per year will be used.

An additional 17 cents for each of these 600 gallons would increase your taxes $102, or about half that of a 1 percent sales tax.

An extra 17 cents per gallon would be substantial for anyone running up and down the road trying to earn a living. But those individuals can deduct fuel and vehicle costs from their income tax. The average person lacks this ability.

Put the tax on fuel, not families and children.

Stanley Robinson

Princeton, Mo.Return to sanity

For decades in the 20th century, Missouri was infamous for its number of paranoid militia groups (the Ku Klux Klan, the Minutemen and others). It seems that the children and grandchildren of the members of those seditious organizations have been elected to the Missouri legislature.

The fear that they have instilled in their constituents leads to hatred of anyone who might try to actually help them.

We are in the middle of remembering the 150th anniversary of the Civil War in this country. One of the results of that terrible war was that state laws could not override federal laws.

What the Missouri legislature did this year was waste precious time and state dollars passing laws that would not stand up to constitutional review.

It’s time these paranoids were removed from office and we return to a period of sanity in Jefferson City.

Brownback should change what he is doing to Kansas and help make it a place to grow up on a dairy farm, to attend a public school with excellent academics and to live a healthy, independent life.

He needs to get rid of his destructive, invasive laws that take away our freedoms and our access to medical procedures that enable us to have healthy, happy, productive lives. The women of Kansas are smart, thoughtful people who should have full access to medical care and correct information about medical procedures.

Brownback needs to retract his expensive and misleading disruptions to our health-care system. My message to Sam Brownback: If you don’t like abortion, then don’t have one.

Stop your fight against our rights. Put Kansas money back in our schools, not in your attack on affordable and necessary health care.

Maggie McCoy

Prairie VillageTV media lapdogs

It appears that political witch hunts and McCarthyism are called out by the mainstream TV media only if scandal and false accusations are directed toward the left wing of American politics.

Thank goodness for distant murder trials, forest fires, floods and riots in Turkey — anything to divert the issues of the day away from the Internal Revenue Service abusing the right wingers. Those conservatives deserve it and are only trying to bring down the president, so why report it?

And, anyway, no one actually gave the order to target only conservative organizations, so how can anyone blame the president? Logic, not evidence, suggests that if Mr. Obama’s promise to have the most open administration in history is false, then why believe the White House occupants’ claims that they know nothing about this or any other scandal?

Logic also says that when one has successfully hidden the evidence, then the response of “no evidence” is a deceptive but somewhat true claim. But it wouldn’t be ignored by the TV networks if conservatives were hiding something.

Robert Devine

Excelsior SpringsForeign students

Russia, Ecuador (three times) , Holland, New Zealand, Germany and Italy are the countries from which my wife and I have been hosts to an AFS exchange student. Now is the time to consider opening your hearts and homes to a young person for this coming school year.

And later, perhaps years later, when you visit his or her home country you will see that country better than you ever would as a tourist. You will become part of his or her family and see their country much the way you showed that family’s young person our country.

Whether you have kids at home or like us are empty-nesters, being host to an exchange student will become an experience you will never forget, especially if you are missing the days of the telephone ringing (but not for you) and having young people around the house.